My Badass Book of Saints

My Badass Book of Saints is a terrific read.

Part memoir, part book club guide, part devotional, and part hagiography, it all adds up to stories of bold, wonderful woman that should inspire anyone.

Johnson introduces us to Saints and women who she feels should be Saints all while giving us an intimate picture of her own life and asking questions that lead the reader to think deeply about their own inspirations and how to incorporate the lessons of some of these women into our own lives.

Each chapter tells us a little of Johnson’s own journey, but also gives us biographies of two contrasting women. Imagine a comparison between Audrey Hepburn and St. Rose of Lima. Flannery O’Connor and St. Margaret of Antioch. Some of these pairings are astonishing – especially when you realize just what some of these very different women had in common!

As is the case with most books of Saints, many of the stories are more apocryphal than fact. However, that doesn’t lessen the impact they have – nor the astounding badassery of people you just would expect. I grew up with St. Theresa (the Little Flower) everywhere in my life. The is the first time I realized how very cool she really was.

Now, I can’t separate the memoir portion of the book (though I really read it for the hagiography). Johnson gives a story that’s full of hope in spite of moments of heartbreak. You learn about her husband’s illness, her father’s death, and her mother’s own badassery. While I’m not much on memoirs, it’s interesting, compelling, and told in a style you can’t help but like.

An excellent and inspirational read!

For many of us, learning about saints gives us inspiration for our lives. For women, this can be especially important because it often seems that our lives are needlessly complicated.

In this book Johnson gives us three sources of inspiration. Each chapter covers a virtue and gives us portraits of two women, one a canonized saint, the other an exemplary women (most of whom, but not all, are Catholic), The third woman to inspire is is Johnson herself, who illustrates the virtues with incidents from her own life and from the life of her family.

The book is delightful and full of new discoveries. Besides all the inspiration from the saints and devoted women as examples, I took great heart from the stories of Johnson's life, which resonated with me.

Each chapter ends with a few questions to ponder.

In addition there is a six-week study guide at the end to help groups read this book.

Whether you are reading this book on your own or in a group, you'll find it inspiring and enlightening.

This is gorgeous and important, and it's going to mean a lot to women at various times during their lives.

A delightfully, eclectic collection of women, both saints and not, brought together by an author who just makes you want to get to know them all better.

This is an inspiring and enjoyable book to read if you are interested in learning about women saints, and women who were 'saintly' in a feisty way. Maria Johnson includes saints, such as Sr. Blandina who was sent to the Wild West which was full of lynch mobs and St Teresa of Avila who founded seventeen convents and fifteen friaries over the age of fifty. Sr Blandina got rid of one of the lynch mobs by taking an accused man to the bedside of the dying man he had assaulted. The dying man forgave him, so he was tried in a court of law rather than a vigilante mov.

Maria Johnson also has sections on women, such as Nancy Wake and Audrey Hepburn. The Australasian Nancy Wake was known as the 'White Mouse' because of her work for the French Resistance during the war. Hepburn also helped the resistance in her native Holland, but she is better-known for her acting and her charity work for children. I was glad to see Nancy Wake in the book, although I think that she might be surprised!

I also liked Johnson's relating how learning about these women helped her through very difficult times, such as teaching poor migrants and her parents' sickness and deaths. They are still assisting her to cope with the hardship of finding out that her husband has Lou Gehrig's disease.

This includes study guides and questions for each chapter. It would be a great book for teenage girls!

I received this free ebook from Ave Maria Press via Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

Hilarious. I don't know much about the saints Johnson covered in this book, but I learned a lot as I made my way through it. That said, I think the content is greatly enhanced by the author's tone and perspective. Most religious books are told in somber tones that bore the reader to tears, but this volume is lighthearted and engaging.

The Saints are true models of how how to live faith filled lives. My Badass book of Saints brings their stories out of the clouds and shines a light on their true life stories. I have always liked reading about the saints but I loved the format of this book. First there is a personal story from the author, then a story from a contemporary cultural icon, then a tie in with a saint story and a rap up at the end to connect the three stories. This format makes the saints more approachable and relatable. Some of the saints included are: St. Joan of Arc, St. Teresa of Avila and St. Rose of Lima, just to name a few. Each chapter has a theme such as selflessness or perseverance and there are questions to ponder at the end of each chapter. This makes it perfect for discussion and group reading. I like how Maria Johnson teaches us how this all applies to our daily life with her quote "All of us are called to do our best . These ....don’t inspire me to go out and look for opportunities to do good. Rather, they inspire me to keep a more watchful eye within my own circles of influence to see what needs to be done there, especially with my family, friends, and people with whom I interact." I know I can often be looking for a project in the community at large, instead of looking inside my life already for opportunities to do good. I would recommend this book to you as a fun way to get to know some remarkable women to inspire you. I liked being challenged to think of women in our own lives that are courageous and compassionate as some of the themes and questions suggest. The title is great and I love the description of bodacious women we can not just imitate but find their qualities in ourselves already, waiting to be tapped into to bring more to our lives and those around us.

The energy jumps off the pages. Totally engaging! It's about women who lead and make a difference in ways that are strong, funny, accomplished.

The title was a bit shocking, but then I discovered some wonderful stories. Wonderful not only because they were from real women with amazing lives, but also because they were very well written. Maria Morera Johnson was able to mix passages of her own life with the stories of those remarkable women, so the reader can really fell and understand her relationship with them. What I liked most were the questions at the end of each chapter: three simple questions that lead me to think about my own life, the main virtues of the women she chose and how that could correspond to women I know. Therefore, at the end, the stories were also my own stories, making this book a very good experience.

A book I love so much, I buy copies for my friends - this is rare, and truly a tribute to the author (and the subject). Not just canonized saints we might glimpse on holy cards or church pamplets (i.e. dry, dull), these are "real-life women who faced down outlaws in the Old West, genoice in Rwanda, convicts in a Tijuana prison, and oppressive regimes in Europe and Cuba."

Nuns toting guns - The Huffington Post shows them "lined up in their habits, wielding rifles like pros." It may sound comical, but read about Sr. Bladina Segale of the Sisters of Charity. "Fastest Nun in the West," she was born in Italy, and thought "Trinidad" (West Indies) was her destination. Oops, no, that's Trinidad, Colorado, "a violent town filled with hardship and lawlessness. The residents often took justice into their own hands, forming lynch mobs," but Sr. Blandina has another idea, and she actually did thwart a lynch mob. How many women can do that? She also met Billy the Kid and told him not to kill the town doctor - and he listened. Now that's power.

I'd say more, but this is a book that needs to be read, complete, and treasured, and shared with friends whether or not they're Catholic. Despite the history of the patriarchal Church leaving a bad impression on women and feminists, there is a quiet, little-known back story, peopled with sinners and heroes, strong, enduring, self-sacrificing and courageous. Day after day, they do the little things, the mundane tasks, like riding a mule into the deserts of Spain or the Old West, sleeping on straw, building hospitals, orphanages and convents. With what money? Like Mother Teresa (a woman of our own times), these ladies set out with no funds or facilities, but with entrepreneurial vision and powers of persuasion, they got things done. They got buildings built.

This is a must-read for so many, an inspiration. The only fictional counterpart I can think of is an anthology edited by Karina Fabian. (I reviewed it at Perhelion Science Fiction under the header "Nuns in Space").

Thank you, NetGalley, for bringing this book to my attention. For several months it hadn't made it into my Kindle and I forgot about it, but this week, I found the link on my shelf (dashboard) and got it downloaded. This one is a keeper! Off to buy more copies now ....

In My Badass Book of Saints, Maria Johnson talks about how she grew up seeing the saints as flat figures shown on holy cards, not as real women who were like her--and who she could be like. My Badass Book of Saints covers not only canonized (officially recognized) saints but also some women who have not, and probably will not be canonized--actress Audrey Hepburn, author Flannery O'Connor and photographer Dorothea Lange.

Each chapter has a theme. First, Johnson tells a story from her own life that deals with that theme. Next she discusses two saints, one of whom lived relatively recently and one who lived long ago and is canonized. For example, one chapter is on seeking peace and reconciliation. First, Johnson talks about a cousin of hers who was a religious sister and who went to Rwanda to work after the genocide there in the 1990's. The two "saints" in this chapter are Immaculee Ilibagiza who spent weeks during the genocide hiding with other women in a small bathroom and who forgave her attackers and St. Rita of Cascia who forgave her abusive husband and those who killed him. Each chapter concludes with reflection questions, making this a good book to use for a women's group. Questions for this chapter include defining "peacemaker" and naming a women in your life who meets that definition. Readers are also asked to think of times when they were peacemakers, and how that made them feel.

All the saints mentioned are women, and this book is clearly directed at women. Johnson's style is conversational; I can imagine her telling those stories to her girlfriends over lattes or margaritas. Non-Catholics often wonder about Catholic's devotion to the saints. Even putting aside for a moment the power of their intercessory prayer, the saints are great role models. It sounds like Johnson is about my age and I know as a girl growing up in the 1960's and 1970's I scoured the library bookshelves for stories about girls and women who actually did something; who were interested in more than just romance. When we see those pious-looking figures on holy cards, it is easy to forget that while prayer may have been the fuel, action is what got these ladies noticed, and that we are all called to act in many ways throughout our lives.

I'd like to thank the publisher for making a review copy available via NetGalley. You can read more about Maria Johnson and some badass saints on her blog. Grade: B+

a great read!

This is a fantastic book. Bold, beautiful, authentic and richly inspiring, this work combines the lives of Catholic saints from the past and more modern women whom are practicing the values and virtues in following God and working for better good of people (some of the modern women are not Catholic/believers, but are very inspiring human beings). And what makes the it even more interesting are very personal and thus very relatable musings of the authoress on every subject (virtues) her work covers. The authoress is obviously warm, approachable, humble and a great fun (the bit of tongue-in-cheek of sorts I assume - a person after my own heart!).

I have learned a lot about some great (and cool) women (yay for the Flannery O’Connor, a personal fave writer!) and enjoyed the rawness of the authoress's personal sharing. And I feel a whole lot closer to the heart of the matter on my faith journey, where so often I feel the need for wise mentoresses - and these women might be such guides on my broken road to God.
One of the best devotionals on the Catholic literary market!